I met Kyle “Kulas” Jennermann online around a month and a half ago because I found two of his posts worthy to share on the site. From his posts alone, I can already tell that he is such a happy person.
It turned out I wasn’t wrong about that!
I got to meet him in person during his press con for Becoming Filipino: Your Travel Blog, his show on ANC. In this press conference, he shared some wonderful insights.
Here are some of them:
7Â Lessons Shared By a Canadian Who Fell In Love With the Philippines and Its Culture
7. Leaving comfort zones can lead to self-discovery. Kulas left the life he had grown accustomed to. He chose to make the Philippines as his home! Prior to this, he had explored a variety of Asian countries for volunteer work but it was here that he had felt most at home with.
6. “Family” need not be by blood. Don’t get him wrong, Kulas loves his family so much! But that didn’t stop him from loving the people he met here and creating special bonds with them. In fact, he even got “baptized” as Kulas by a lolo who randomly uttered the name when he called for him! who For Kulas, it was such an honor to have been given a Filipino name.
5. “Home” need not be the country you were born in. One of the things that struck us the most during his press conference was when he told us his response every time his parents ask him when he is coming home. His answer is, “I am at home here in the Philippines. You can come visit me here.”
4. Discover the lesser known places. Kulas had seen a lot of the Philippines’ wonders even more so than many of us. He urged us to discover more about the Philippines that the ones we had already grown accustomed to because our country truly has a lot of beautiful discoveries to offer.
3. We seem to be a lot better than we think. Hearing his kind words about our country and our people, I realized that we put ourselves down a little too much. He already met a lot of nationalities throughout his years of traveling and he said that Filipinos are truly one of a kind. That’s why it’s with us that he felt most at home in.
2. Choose to see the positive side. Kulas’ take on the negative side of the Philipines is simple: it happens anywhere else in the world. All the big and petty downfalls of our country, he said, also happens everywhere else. We should choose to see the positive side instead because, again, Filipinos are wonderful people. There is so much beauty in our country and culture.
1. Smile. He fell in love with the smiles of the Filipino people. No matter what our journey is, we shouldn’t forget to smile once in a while. It may not fully solve things, but it helps make things lighter and better, even for a little bit.
Check out his other stories here:
The Titas of Homonhon: A Heartwarming Experience of True Filipino Hospitality
LOOK: A Passionate Foreigner Breaks Negative Stereotypes About Mindanao
What’s your favorite part about our country and culture?
